Editorial: Adiós, trains to nowhere

No, the state doesn't exactly have a bridge to sell you - but will a train car do?

Yes, indeed, New York is set to auction off surplus train cars and other rail equipment this week, and we are not talking about old stuff that was effectively used for decades and then gets relegated to the scrap pile.

In fact, this equipment was part of a high-speed rail project that went bad, horribly bad.

The idea - which is still a laudable one, by the way - involved improving service between Albany and New York City. But ideas can turn into costly messes when proper planning isn't done. In this case, there were problems with the trains that weren't originally detected - and the needed upgrades to the tracks weren't completed to make the project work.

So, for nearly a decade, the state has been paying more than $150,000 a year to store the trains and replacement parts for the failed project, adding insult to injury. That money could have gone back to the taxpayers - or it could have been used to help fund a couple of more teacher positions or Department of Environmental Conservation enforcement officers, or in so many other far more productive ways.

Earlier this year, state officials were reviewing expenses and determined the trains would serve no future use for them, so they will sell them off. Goodness knows how much unnecessary equipment and resources are in the hands of the state and federal governments, but these are clearly areas where government needs to become far more efficient.

The state Office of General Services is planning to sell train parts today in Rotterdam and the rail cars on Thursday in Scotia.

It has already sold $65,000 in equipment on eBay, where the surplus items will continue to be listed until this week's auctions. The Office of General Services also has launched the "NYSStore," an eBay-based online platform to sell unneeded state vehicles and other excess state assets.

The so-called "trains to nowhere" may soon be out of state hands, but government's efforts to downsize its holdings certainly shouldn't stop there.

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Editorial: Adiós, trains to nowhere

No, the state doesn't exactly have a bridge to sell you ? but will a train car do? Yes, indeed, New York is set to auction off surplus train cars and other rail equipment this week.